Of Mist and Midnight Skies
by Angelas
Summary: Itachi knows his end is near. A final night with Kisame, a night to say goodbye. KisaIta Two-Shot


**HI ALL. :D I have no idea what this is, but it's definitely a KisaIta! XD One of my all-time favorite couplings. I wanted to catch up on my writing, play around with words and whatnot. So here! A two-shot.**

**I really am extremely iffy about submitting this, actually, as I fear it might not be of general taste.. But whatever. I like it, and I hope you do, too. C: Here comes nothing.**

**I DISCLAIM. blahblah**

**oOo**

If Kisame could capture a single, recurring memory in a glass jar, it would be this.

A memory in which Itachi sat calmly, almost sadly, against the wet grass of the waterfall's tundra.

Just as he was at that moment.

His legs rested idly underneath him, his vacant reflection facing the continual ripples of the river's ledge. The cryptic assonance of the devilish Sharingan parted the water's flow, cutting it, as lashes, so hellishly long, threatened to keep those dangerous eyes hidden behind their blackened veil forever.

Kisame watched silently, the gluttonous Samehada resting at his side against an aging oak. The shadows of the forest kept his unwavering stare a guarded secret, insuring him from the Uchiha's all-knowing gaze.

His calloused hands ached to trace Itachi's sitting figure, to paint that long stream of ink-like hair with his blistered fingers before it disappeared into the ceaseless stream of the algid river.

That would be the memory Kisame would keep. Perpetual and never-ending.

Itachi.

He'd watch it every night, every sun-fall, until the jar dusted of age and broke of rot.

Shark eyes watched as cream hands dug themselves into tresses of cindered hair, lathering water deep into the roots. Kisame shifted in his position, desperate to see the serene expression on Itachi's face as he went about his daily ritual.

It was always during this time of day, when the sun lied the brightest, in which the Uchiha washed his hair for hours on end. Painted his nails, only to re-paint them again. Kisame found this awfully tedious, yet respected the other's unusual wishes, especially if it meant having to watch the memory he strove to never forget.

A memory in which Itachi sat calmly, almost sadly, against the wet grass of the waterfall's tundra.

Itachi was of a smaller build.

Fragile.

Kisame often found himself soused in anxiety whenever Itachi reached underneath his Akatsuki cloak for a shuriken during battle, fearing that the Uchiha would shatter into a thousand pieces the very moment he would throw it.

Kisame was one to brawl the infantry work, the one to bathe in enemy blood. That was the strategy. It was an invincible tactic. Whenever Itachi opposed this with a shuriken or kunai on his part, the other could do nothing but worry.

Only to worry because, after all, Itachi held the endangered pedigree of an Uchiha. An unbeatable, fatal force that could have him dead in the fraction of a second if he were to as much as displease the other. Kisame knew this, therefore said nothing in regards to his consuming concerns.

Hence, he watched carefully. Fully prepared to earn a new scar or two to protect the other at all costs. To throw himself into the front lines, making the Uchiha an omniscient priority.

If only one were to survive under impossible circumstances, Kisame had already decided that it would be Itachi. He would make absolute fact of this. The reason, vague. The reason powerful. Kisame found himself not quite wanting to know the reason after the battle was over.

The reason would remain hidden. Behind blank stares, within the forests they sauntered, the occasional brush of the shoulders. The reason was an unseen smile at night while Itachi untied his hair.

Shark eyes traced Itachi's lithe arms, his manicured hands tying a band into long, raven strands. An insufferably lovely scene that left a pair of indigo brows clasping harshly against each other in their wake.

Kisame, for a brief, dangerous moment, felt almost taken. Because Itachi was lovely. Because the man's hands were thin, a fickle promise of a woman's touch. Hair so long, a curtain of twilight. Red roses for eyes.

A delicate lethality.

A lethality that left Kisame feeling unbearably warm at night. When Itachi's soft breathing signaled the hours in which he would finally manage sleep.

Kisame would watch quietly as Itachi's lashes brushed against his marked complexion, tempting the older of the two to reach out and perhaps encase the other's cheek. To feel its warmth, warmth that Kisame was absolutely certain had remained virgin all of those years.

Supple. Chaste. Taboo.

Alas, it remained a dream. A trivial fantasy that would remain eternally subdued. Mused only in secret when Itachi slept. When Kisame watched.

His hands would tremble at their sides. Wanting to feel, just _once_, the other's skin, yet knowing otherwise.

But that was many years ago.

Kisame's hands had learned control. They no longer trembled. The years numbed, made way for clarity. He was strangely colored, after all. He knew that love would never come. Affection was a dream. His hands were made for the kill. His arms, for Samehada. There wasn't a limb he carried that lied fit for an embrace.

The silence between them was enough. A complacent comfort, if not for Kisame's occasional story-telling and Itachi's demands. Watching the Uchiha sit by the waterfall, with that permanent sadness in his tired, failing eyes was enough. To know that, above all, they were partners. Killed, ate, walked, and planned as partners.

The occasional chuckle. The rare joke, the soft, secret curve of a smirk.

Together.

"Trout or fish?"

Itachi turned, slightly surprised that Kisame's large figure stood directly behind him without as much of a noise. This was no longer such a marvel, however, since Itachi very well knew that his senses were no longer the flawless prodigies they used to be.

The disease drained him, ate him from the outside in. He could feel it. The minutes, the hours, being taken from him. His body failing. His eyes, often seen as precious and invaluable gifts, his second curse. The aid to the disease, to his withering.

"It makes no difference," he said, looking away. He'd seen only a blur of different colors, unaware that he had first looked at Kisame's forehead, failing rather miserably at meeting eyes with his partner.

"Fine."

Cherry eyes watched in silence as Kisame relieved himself of his cloak, throwing it somewhere on the dampened floor. Itachi could make out the familiar outline of Kisame's broad, heavy build from behind his failing visage. His eyes traced as the blue nin stepped carelessly into the cold tract of the river, causing several ripples to surround his moving figure. He took long strides, his strong legs a true virtue to have been able to part the water with so much ease. There was splashing all around.

Itachi sat in place, amazed.

It took him a long while to realize that he now lied drenched in water.

A long while because the sound of Kisame's humorous cursing, of his voice, was far more important at that moment above all else.

**oOo**

Dusk fell. A small fire warmed the two men that night.

Kisame was unusually quiet.

Itachi had grown terribly accustomed to the man's constant rambling about crab, food, women, and other needless absurdities. A perfectly roasted trout rested before him, but he couldn't find it in himself to eat without Kisame's tangents accompanying him in the background.

Inwardly troubled, Itachi stole a glance towards his long-time partner, noticing that the man was busy gorging himself with the large catch he made that day.

Kisame ate to impossible volumes. A feast for ten would oftentimes be consumed in one sitting, only to be utilized in accumulating and maintaining the impeccable amount of solid muscle Kisame was known for having in all of the Akatsuki.

But he would not begin to speak.

A knot began to set seed somewhere within Itachi's innards, thieving away his hunger. It didn't feel right. Perhaps it would simply be best if he didn't eat that night. His head was heavy with thought. His temples ached. He stared downcast towards the steaming trout, an empty wind swaying the fire between them.

"It'll get cold, you know," Kisame said moments later, setting two more meals above the fire.

Itachi glanced briefly towards the other, his face void of all expression.

"You don't like it?" Kisame tried again, a dark brow raised subtly in question.

There was a long silence.

"Those stories of yours," Itachi dared himself, his hand wrapped tightly around his wrist from beneath his cloak. "Tell one."

A shocked expression formed slowly on Kisame's face, completely taken back by the request. If at all, he'd think his stories bored the Uchiha. He deemed he talked to only himself whenever he did find himself telling them at random intervals. Flavescent, shark-like eyes traced Itachi's face carefully, unable to find anything out of place. His chakra remained the same, as it had always been. Samehada remained dormant. Certainly it couldn't be a clone..

"Uh.. Well.." a large hand rubbed clumsily at the back of the blue nin's head, scouring for a story he didn't recount telling before.

Itachi waited patiently, his perfectly cooked trout ever-steaming before his crossed position on the forest floor. Kisame could feel those dangerous eyes lingering on him, piercing him, making the situation even the more awkward and perplexing.

"All of these years you've told them, and now you cannot?"

If Itachi weren't, in fact, Itachi, Kisame would have shot him a glare or two. He had plenty. Several to spare, even. But the notion that Itachi had _demanded_ for one was the most distressing factor of all.

Did he wish to hear of a particular genre? A particular instance or time? Was it a trick question? Did he even wish to hear one at all? Maybe he'd heard wrong. After all, Itachi had been infamous in their partnership for his incoherent mumbling.

Taking a slow, cautious bite of his sixth meal of the night, Kisame locked eyes with Itachi's Sharingan. The color of the thing was always so frightening, but he knew Itachi would often passively activate it in order to make the most of his remaining eyesight. A two-edged sword. There was no escaping his biggest weakness.

Clearing his throat, Kisame prompted himself to speak.

"Before I joined the Akatsuki I would spend my time watching the ocean's waves. Not because they looked nice, but because I felt compelled to. When there was no ocean, I'd make one. When I could not make one, I'd think one up. When there was no time to think, I'd make time, meaning taking down the ones that got in my way."

A cream, effeminate hand reached slowly for the forgotten trout set before him, warm still, taking the first bite somewhere on the belly. It was good, as it always was when Kisame prepared it. Itachi's ears were attentive, his eyes heavily lidded as he concentrated on the reverberative lull of the other's oddly soothing voice.

The knot previously embedded in Itachi's innards began to recede, his hidden hunger peeking forth once more. This time it felt right, as Kisame spoke and told a story. As the fire warmed them, as the voice of the other killed the painful, recurring silence. Itachi chewed softly in complacency, listening closely.

"I find myself wanting to remember things when I look at them, the waves. I'm not one to enjoy memories. They tie you down, hurt you when you feel the strongest. Because strength is all that matters. Success. You should know that of all people, right?"

Another bite of the trout filled Itachi's cue, and Kisame was forced to hold back a roll of the eyes.

He knew the other couldn't have possibly been listening. His stories always fell on deaf ears.

Why had Itachi insisted for him to waste his breath, then? Was it some sort of sick joke?

"Nevermind," Kisame sighed, setting aside his food. His hunger had suddenly vanished. What he'd just shared with the other had actually held profound meaning to him. A common mistake to share intimacies with an Uchiha, those who were notoriously known for their deceit. "Don't wish for things you do not want, Itachi. You might just get them."

"And if I wish for you to continue?"

His whisper was a ghost in the night, soft as it was known, deep and resonant; a voice Kisame had grown to know all too well. A pair of sharp eyes widened, meeting gazes with a tainted crimson. A gaze so heavily lavished, that the gratifying illusion of applied cosmetic lied ever-present.

His body warmed somewhere, Kisame could feel it. But as casually as he shrugged away the savage deaths of his enemies, he managed to shrug this off, as well. He had entirely numbed himself of the warmth that Itachi had caused him many years ago. That absurdity no longer existed.

The dream of someday touching him, the nightly fantasies, they were gone. As they should be.

"Then you might just have to wait until tomorrow, Itachi," a passive yawn, almost comical. "You sleep, or I sleep?"

Setting the bone of the grilled trout somewhere to the side, Itachi looked away slowly, almost sadly, towards the grass beneath him. His eyes dull, eyes so tired and overused. A body that begged for sleep. Small shoulders that carried the inexplicable weight of countless tragedies, longing for slumber; for rest.

Kisame quietly marveled Itachi in concern. A small body like his could only endure so much more.

"You should sleep. I'll keep watch until tomorrow."

"There will be no tomorrow, Kisame."

A deep silence. A howl in the wind. Wolves pining for company somewhere within the reaches of the forest trees. A hoot of an owl. The stars promised a tomorrow. An indigo brow rose subtly in inquisition, curious at the other's cryptic statement.

"What do you mean..?"

"Kisame, what do you think of me?"

"Think.. of you?"

Itachi looked down towards his tangled hands, a panic somewhere in his chest, so unlike his character. The question was firm and to the point. He wanted to know, just once, what the man in front of him, his partner, his _companion_, saw him as.

A monster? A murderer? A being with empty, to little meaning?

..Nothing?

His cloak grew cumbersome, he could feel the sharp gaze of the other studying him, questioning. The night was cold, but Kisame lit a fire of cheer just by being there. Being near. Itachi let out a silent breath, his red, gleaming eyes downcast towards his painted nails.

"You're strong, nearly invincible. I have yet to see you shed blood during battle," Kisame let out almost reluctantly. The sudden question had thrown him off guard. He had many answers. So many, in fact, that he could very well sit there for hours on end answering Itachi's peculiar inquiry.

"..That's all?"

Itachi's voice was a sad whisper, one that left Kisame entirely baffled. His large figure began to warm with the warmth of many years before, his cheeks changing color without his full knowing. His heart sped, the heart he thought he'd rid of. His veins pooled with blood.

Itachi was a powerful force. An ocean. A wave that swayed emotions. Emotions that the blue nin thought he'd been exempt from since long ago. There sat his fantasy of several years past. With his long hair and beautiful eyes, asking the question that unlocked so much within Kisame's mind.

No, that was not all.

There were so many things left unsaid, yet he knew he could say no more of it.

Kisame's gaze fell towards the crackling fire that separated them, speechless.

Itachi looked somewhere to the side, his eyes heavily lidded, lashes brushing at the cheek. He took a breath, a string of pain clenching him somewhere within his chest. He had secretly known the answer before he asked for it. He could hardly fool even himself.

He meant nothing to Kisame.

"I understand your indifference," was his doleful whisper. His body ached, his shoulders weighed him down. "I, too, would see myself indifferently in your eyes."

Kisame stiffened in his position. His heart heaved from within him, pulse rising. To have to see Itachi so vulnerable, so suddenly. To have to hear that voice laced with utter sadness. Was it something he had said? Was it something he hadn't?

The fire crackled once more, tearing their blanket of silence. Only the chirping of unbeknownst insects accompanied the two men, followed by the sudden rustling of Itachi's clothes as he presented the notion of his leave.

Kisame immediately caught sight of this, having reached his sturdy arm to catch grasp of the Uchiha's wrist just in time to keep him where he sat. Shark eyes met geranium, causing Kisame to inevitably notice the watery dam threatening at the lashed rims of the other's eyes. Kisame's heart skipped a beat, his mouth parting in sheer shock.

Had it been tears beneath those omniscient eyes he once sought as heartless?

Was it vulnerability at its highest, most sensitive peak? Itachi? The one who slaughtered his clan? Made way of his own parents? Joined Akatsuki? Killed hundreds? The one who aided in the death of all Jinchuuriki, no matter how young? The one who'd shattered his younger brother's wrist once upon a time?

A single tear fell from cherry-tinted eyes, running along a marked cheek. Kisame could almost hear his own heart break to the cyclicity of its fall. His grip on the other's wrist loosened, Itachi's lovely eyes gazing blankly somewhere along Kisame's chin.

"You can still see me, can't you?" the blue nin asked, his voice unforgivably gruff, yet so soft. "Itachi?"

A languid nod assured him of such, and Kisame could feel Itachi tense from underneath his grasp. The fire illuminated the handsome features of the other, disallowing Kisame to look away. Tears fell more frequently, more freely, cherry eyes dilating and struggling to focus. Indigo brows furrowed lightly in forbearance, a rough, blue hand reaching to rest upon a marred cheek.

"I think of you at each moment," Kisame whispered, his thick fingers caressing the skin he thought he'd never feel, "Your soft breathing, a hymn in the night. A recurring drone of the ocean's gloom underneath a midnight fall, a red rose in a midsummer's wind underneath a fully lit moon. A paragraph in a book I could never dream to understand."

"Kisame.."

"If I knew love, it would be you."

A last furrow of the brows, and Kisame pulled his hand away, bending his knee to stand. His heart was heavy, yet it no longer clamored as harshly as before. He said it. The warmth from many years ago. And what was said, could not be unsaid. He knew fully well that rejection would come his way, yet it no longer mattered.

He had said it all, and somewhere deep within all of the thick muscle and vicious killing intent, it soothed him. A weight had been lifted, allowing Kisame to breathe steadily again.

"That is what I think of you."

He'd been ready to go far away, for a round or two of pointless gallivanting, to allow Itachi some time to forget all that was said. A fruitless confession, there was nothing more to it. A feeling Kisame had kept dormant, a feeling the other had almost _childishly_ insisted to hear out.

Before Kisame could take his immediate leave, however, a fastidious hand reached quickly, almost _desperately_, for his sleeve.

Purple nails, a ringed finger. Red eyes teary.

Kisame's lips parted once more, looking deeply into the others sanguine stare. Itachi's midnight hair framed his face almost sinfully. A view so hellishly feminine against the fire's illuminating flame, that it all but took full control of Kisame's deepest, most masculine desires.

"Kisame, please," a helpless slant of the brows, an innocent bat of the lash; _vulnerability_. "Stay. With me.."

Kisame's eyes were predatory knives against the other's pleading ones.

"And if I ask for compensation?"

"Take what you will."

"And if I break you?"

A muted silence, noses nearly brushing; air shared.

"Tear me apart if you must."

**oOo**

**BUTTSECKS AHEAD! Lul~ o-o**

**Ummm, yeah. O: Sorry for the bizarre style of writing. It's just how I decided to roll in this particular (TRAGIC) story. Make light of any mistakes you guys find, and leave a wonderful comment down below. :3 The second part to the story will be posted somewhere along the week. I SWARE. 'Till soon!~**


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